How Practical Big Data Management

Can Drive Value in Healthcare

Big Data Symposium Session BG5, Monday February 11, 2019, 2:30-3:30PM

Jason Burke

System VP and Chief Analytics Officer

UNC Health Care

I have no real or apparent conflicts of interest to report.

Conflict of Interest

• Define the evolving role of data management in the field of health

care “big data”

• Discuss some of the new competencies for effectively leveraging

big data at scale

• Share some examples of how this is being applied at a large

health care system

Agenda

1. Identify data management and data governance best practices

that are essential to a Big Data ecosystem

2. Explore how governance applies to new and existing Big Data

programs

3. Assess how an effective Big Data strategy can address

challenges and enhance data sharing efforts while being mindful

of big data ethics

4. Demonstrate real-world implementations of Big Data

management best practices in healthcare and how they support

value delivery and strategic outcomes

Learning Objectives

Here’s Your Report!

Starting with the end in mind…

The Changing Role and Scope of

“Data Management”

1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s

Managing files

Managing operational databases

Managing data warehouses

Managing online data

Massive data

Unmanaged

The exponential growth of data

drives an explosive growth in data

management issues

Valuation Area 2000 2020

What is the source of the

data?

We are ?

What do we know about this

data and what it means?

It matches our operations ?

What’s in the data; how

representative is it?

It matches our operations ?

How was the data obtained

and managed?

Through our systems ?

Who else is using this data? Just us ?

How consistent is the data

with other data?

There is no other data Inconsistent

How good was the process

used to create this data?

It matches our operations ?

How current is the data? It matches our operations ?

How much is it changing? It matches our operations A lot

Human Valuation and Big Data

We have to know and manage a lot ABOUT our data,

not just the data itself

Implications of Today’s Big Data

What is the source of the data?

What do we know about this data and what it means?

What’s in the data; how representative is it?

How was the data obtained and managed?

Who else is using this data?

How consistent is the data with other data?

How good was the process used to create this data?

How current is the data?

How much is it changing?

Lineage / Pedigree

Business Context

Quality

Reasonableness

Consistency

Pervasiveness

Socialization

Controls

Currency

Volatility

Image via Flickr user horiavarlan

PRACTICE-BASED

EVIDENCE

Why is this so different?

global

institutional

individual

multi-institutional

SCOPE

controlled semi-controlled real world

cohorts

CONSTRAINTS

QUALITY

IMPROVEMENT

CLINICAL

RESEARCH

Dismantling the Hype

• A technology problem

• You can fix it with text mining,

machining learning, AI,

Hadoop, or another buzzword

• Standards is the fix

• Sticking to one vendor is a fix

• Outsourcing helps

• A people / process problem

• Garbage in, garbage out…but we

can improve it even if we can’t fix it

• Standards help a lot

• Sticking to one vendor is

impossible, but does help

• No vendor knows your business

better than you

The Buzz The Reality

Harnessing Big Data is an Organizational Competency

Data

Information Knowledge Insight Action

Value

Raw Data

Context Meaning Purpose

Decision Positive Change

People & Process

Investments

Designing for Reusability

Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderlane

• Stakeholders are project area experts

• Effort is focused on predefined questions

• Work is relevant to project team

• Timeline is project driven

• Data definitions are project specific

• Data structured for single use

• Little-to-no analytical code reuse

• Release available to project stakeholders

• Stakeholders are functional experts

• Questions are not predefined

• Work must be relevant to multiple customers

• Timeline is engineering driven

• Data definitions are enterprise-wide

• Data is structured for broad re-use

• Analytical models are built for multiple projects

• Release available to entire enterprise

Reusability in Analytics: Products!

PROJECTS

PRODUCTS

Investing in Competencies

Data Quality

Management

Analytics

Competency

Development

& Staffing

Data Policies

and

Standards

Master

Data

Management

(MDM)

Metadata

Management

Community

Engagement

Knowledge

Management

Governance &

Decision

Making

Asset

Provisioning,

Management

& Certification

Engineering

Management

Architecture

Design and

Management

Data Strategy

Formalism

Data Model

Engineering &

Management

(Domains)

Analytical

Model

Engineering &

Management

Data

Operations

Management

and Controls

Data Roles &

Stewardship

Consulting

and Guidance

ENGINEERING

OPERATIONS

Lifecycle and

Quality

Management

DATA

GOVERNANCE

BUSINESS

OPERATIONS

Like many academic medical systems, UNC HCS has a diversified,

empowered culture

• Organizational units with deep subject matter experts (SMEs)

• Spirit of research, innovation, and entrepreneurship

Any journey with analytics must respect those cultural norms

• Fully centralized  “ivory tower”, bottlenecks, loss of institutional

context and SME

• Fully federated  no economies of scale, impossible to establish a

single source of truths

We opted to pursue a hybrid model

• Centralize building reusable assets

• Federate the use and extension of those assets

• Bring federated SMEs into all build-related work

• Help federated users be more effective with data / analytics

Business &

Clinical

SMEs

Technology

SMEs

Analytics

SMEs

Centralized vs. Federated Capability Development

Designed Into

• Governance

• Solution Development

• System Enhancements

• ORBITs

Data Governance

Data Governance Program Pillars

(Knowledgent, Mikol)

Data

Quality

Mgmt

Analytics

Competency

Data

Domains

Data Policy

Master

Data

Mgmt

Metadata

Mgmt

Application inventory

System interfaces

inventory

Business glossary

Application data

dictionaries

Core reports inventory

Data release inventory

Data Profiling

Transparency of results

Quality thresholds

Prioritized remediation

efforts

Source of truth for key

shared data

Common terms and

groupings for

integrated analytics

Assign decision rights

and accountabilities

Permissions

Standardize data

movement and access

approval methods

Further define regulation

DG Maturity

Group data into

unique domains

Nominate Information

Owners

Data Steward selection

and engagement

Tool inventory

Remove duplication of

efforts and solutions

Clearly prioritize

analytics initiatives

Drive progress toward

self- service analytics

Asset Certification

• Certification is a review process of key elements and tools used for decision making across the

enterprise. Certification provides:

o Reliability

o Traceability

o Standardization

o Documentation

• Certification Levels

o Gold

o Silver

o Bronze

• Certification Drivers

o Initiator

o Stakeholders

o Data Governance

Asset

Provisioning,

Management

& Certification

Community Knowledge & Culture

Community

Engagement

Knowledge

Management

Data availability velocity > policy development velocity

Obtaining multidisciplinary perspectives on a big data opportunity up

front is critical to ensuring the right questions are being asked

Questions to ask as soon as possible:

 Who are the stakeholders for this work?

 Who has granted consent for this work, when, and why?

 What are potentially negative outcomes of this work, and who would

be impacted (e.g., sponsors vs. owners vs. stakeholders)?

 If we told patients and/or physicians we were doing this, what would

they think?

 Where is the line between “improvement” and “research”?

 What controls can be used to mitigate potentially negative impacts

of this?

A Word on Ethics

• Common views of

health care system

utilization through

shared semantic

representation

• Requires data domains

through a more

sophisticated data

strategy linked to data

governance

Example: Utilization Modeling

Example: Patient Throughput Optimization

Bed Assignment

Physical Capacity

Order Triage

Throughput Optimization

Using discrete event simulation to drive operational efficiencies

Example: Emergency Operations

Dynamic ED Dashboard

ED Surge Model

ED Throughput Optimization

• Models can be interpreted consistently

despite different methods and focus

Example: Care Variation

Mapping clinical context to big data

• Individual diseases

have disease-specific

models

• Performance is defined

against system-level

standards

• Analytics are used to

normalize comparisons

Do we care about “big data” or “big insights”?

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DATA Issues

Storage

Structure

Timeliness

Semantics & Language

Validity

Reliability

Triage

Pedigree

INSIGHT Issues

Innovation

Health Outcomes

Profitability

Productivity

Translational Science

Customer Intimacy

Risk

Value

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Summary

1. Deriving value from big data is about a lot more than traditional

“data management”

 What we know about our data 

What we know from our data

2. Data governance is one of the key domains required to effectively

operationalize big data

3. Routine value creation from big data is dependent on growing and

transitioning enterprise capabilities

 Reusable designs and assets

 New process development

 Business and clinical engagement

4. Governance programs need to be ever mindful of ethics

considerations

 New data use is sometimes unplanned data use

Jason Burke

System VP and Chief Analytics Officer

Email: Jason.Burke@unchealth.unc.edu

Twitter: @jaburke

LinkedIn: jasonburke

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